Category: Religion

In addressing the issue on sexual abuse on children by some priests, Pope Francis announced Saturday that bishops who fail to report cases of sex abuse of children and vulnerable adults could be removed from office.

Over the years, it has been said that the Catholic Church has not been holding bishops accountable for failing to act in cases of clerical sex abuses in the Church. The criticism has been followed by some victims’ families lobbying the Vatican to take a tougher stance on the issue.

In 2014, Pope Francis responded to the issue by setting up a Vatican commission on sexual abuse in the Church and parishes.

In recent developments, Pope Francis in an apostolic letter published Saturday June 6, explained that canon law already allows bishops to be removed for serious reasons. The Pope made clear that among those reasons is the failure of a bishop to report cases of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.

Part of the statement of Pope Francis read “As a loving mother, the Church loves all her children, but treats and protects with a very particular affection the smaller and helpless. This is a task that Christ entrusted to the entire Christian community as a whole. With this in mind, the Church is vigilant in protecting children and vulnerable adults,”

The Pope went Further to note that Bishops and other people holding leadership positions in the Church must protect those who are the weakest among the people entrusted to them. “In the case of abuse of minors or vulnerable adults, it is sufficient that the lack of care is serious,” The Pope wrote.

He explained that Vatican offices have the jurisdiction to remove bishops in such cases. This could be done by urging the bishop to submit his resignation or a decree of removal could be issued, but the final decision rests with the Pope as the churches highest authority.

Still in the same letter, Pope Francis also established a panel of legal experts to advise him on making the final decision regarding the removal of a bishop or superior in cases of sexual abuse.

Muhammad Ali, a legend in boxing and described by many as the greatest of all time died on Friday June 3, reportedly of septic shock due to unspecified natural causes as reported by his family.

The three time world heavyweight champion and one of the world’s greatest sporting figures died at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

The 74-year-old is said to have been suffering from a respiratory illness, a condition which is said to have been complicated by Parkinson’s disease.

A public funeral will be held for the boxer on Friday in his hometown of Louisville in Kentucky to pay respect to Muhammad Ali. A statement from his family said the world has been invited to Ali’s funeral, which is what the late world champion recommended.

Former US President Bill Clinton is among those who will give a eulogy at the service, and was one of many prominent global figures who paid tribute to Ali on Saturday, saying he lived a life “full of religious and political convictions that led him to make tough choices and live with the consequences”.

As Ali’s family has revealed, eulogies at the legends funeral will be delivered by President Bill Clinton alongside sport journalist Bryant Gumbel and Comedian Billy Crystal.

Pope Francis has said the Vatican should study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons. The Pope’s call hints on calls that women around the world and particularly in the United States have been asking the church to address over the years.

Pope Francis

Pope Francis’s groundbreaking remarks were made as a response to an off -the-cuff question.

The question came from the heads of women’s religious orders, meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday May 12 2016. The women group pressed the Pope for tangible ways through which women can play a larger role in leading the Catholic Church. To date, Francis has praised the “feminine genius” but has not carried through on vague promises to appoint more women to leadership positions. The women group holds.

In a series of pointed directed questions to the pope, the women asked why they can’t preach at Mass or be ordained as deacons.

According to Vatican Radio Pope Francis noted that women can give ‘reflections’ at Catholic worship services, but only priests should preach homilies at Mass because they are acting in the person of Christ, better known as ‘persona Christi’. Church leaders have argued over the years that to prevent women from being ordained as priests, maintaining that Jesus’s disciples were all men.

Tenets of the argument that women should be ordained deacons draw their inspiration from the Bible where St. Paul mentions a woman by name Phoebe, who is said to have served in the early church, possibly as a deaconess.

When asked about Phoebe on Thursday, the Pope said the role of Phoebe and other women wasn’t clear, and he would ask the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to look into it.

It is not yet clear whether the Pope meant that the Vatican will study the role of women deacons in history or the possibility that women could be deacons in the future. Vatican Radio, on its part portrayed the Pope’s remarks as a broad call to set up a commission to study the possibility of reinstating female deacons.

The Women’s Ordination Conference said in a statement that “Opening a commission to study the diaconate for women would be a great step for the Vatican in recognizing its own history”.